Speeding convertible flew up ‘like a roller coaster’ in Reseda crash that badly injured 3 men

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A group of women walk past the scene of an overnight crash that left three young men in their early 20s critically injured when their speeding convertible Ford Mustang crashed into multiple vehicles. (Photo by Dean Musgrove/Los Angeles Daily News)

Three young men -- none wearing seat belts -- are in critical condition after they were ejected from this convertible Ford Mustang early Monday, Aug. 8, 2016, in a high-speed crash on Vanowen Street just west of Tampa Avenue. Twelve other cars were damaged in the crash, police said. (Photo by Rick McClure/Special to the Los Angeles Daily News)

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Three young men -- none wearing seat belts -- are in critical condition after they were ejected from this convertible Ford Mustang early Monday, Aug. 8, 2016, in a high-speed crash on Vanowen Street just west of Tampa Avenue. Twelve other cars were damaged in the crash, police said. (Photo by Rick McClure/Special to the Los Angeles Daily News)

RESEDA >> Witnesses described a horrific scene Monday after a speeding Ford Mustang convertible collided with another car and then careened into a series of parked cars in Reseda, leaving two young San Fernando Valley men in critical condition and another in stable condition.

Rudy Amaya, 35, said he was returning to his home on Vanowen Street near Tampa Avenue after walking his pit bull early Monday when he heard a “horrendous” sound behind him. He then saw “debris all over the place” and two men being thrown from the Mustang.

The convertible “crashed over there, went (up in the air) like a roller coaster — that’s when the bodies (flew) out,” he said. “It managed to land on its side and … teetered to be right side up. It was just a mess.”

At about 12:30 a.m. Monday, a Ford Mustang convertible was headed west in the No. 2 lane on Vanowen at Aura Avenue just west of Tampa when it collided or clipped a Nissan Altima — driven by a 21-year-old Chatsworth man — headed west in the No. 1 lane, said Los Angeles police Detective Humberto Fajardo of LAPD’s Valley Traffic Division. The initial impact caused the Mustang, which witnesses said was going more than 100 mph in a 35-mph zone, to lose control and collide with six parked vehicles on Vanowen, he said.

The driver as well as a back-seat passenger, a 19-year-old Canoga Park Man, were ejected from the Mustang. The front-seat passenger, a 21-year-old Canoga Park man, who was not ejected, also suffered serious injuries, Fajardo said.

‘Keep breathing…’

Amaya said he ran to a man laying on the street who had been ejected from the Mustang. He “brought him back to consciousness with screaming, keeping him focused, (saying) ‘keep breathing…(paramedics) are on their way,’” he said.

Meanwhile, Amaya’s brother — who knows something about first aid — tended to a second man who had been ejected from the Mustang, who apparently had fractured his skull, Amaya said. Amaya’s brother rendered aid with a towel and tried “to just keep him awake” until paramedics arrived minutes later, he said.

A third man was trapped and had to be extricated from the Mustang by Los Angles Fire Department personnel using power tools, according to fire officials and witnesses.

All three badly injured men, none of whom were wearing seat belts, were taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, Fajardo said. A fourth victim at the scene refused to be taken to the hospital, according to a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman.

The driver of the Mustang was not believed to be racing with another car — “just driving at a high rate of speed,” Fajardo said. Neither drugs nor alcohol were initially suspected but the investigation was ongoing, he said.

Amaya, who had just made it inside the gate of his house, said he was so close to the collision that he felt some flying glass touch his neck. Had it happened just seconds beforehand while he was still on the sidewalk, “I would have had the scare of my life. I would have been hurt,” he said.

Speed is a problem

Speeding and the potential for such collisions is why some residents here have fences around their homes, Amaya said.

Speeding “happens all the time here,” he said. “There are (alcoholic) bars here and this is a street that people race down all the time with no care in the world.”

Major collisions happen about once a year here, he added.

Amaya’s brother’s car as well as two cars belonging to a tenant and a car belonging to her boyfriend that were parked on Vanowen Street were among the vehicles damaged in the incident, he said.

Across the street, neighbor John Weber said he was sleeping when he heard “a big old crunching sound” early Monday and went outside to see what had happened.

“There was one car that was really crushed badly, laying up on its side,” Weber said outside his home Monday. “There was a convertible Mustang that was this way (crunched to the left) and it was all smashed up. There was a Mini Cooper right here by the telephone pole and one body was laying by it. There was another body laying on the other side of the street.”

The retiree, who has lived in the home for more than a decade, said speeding isn’t normally a problem in the area.

“For the most part, it’s pretty good,” he said. When people do speed there, he said, it’s “maybe 5 miles an hour (above the speed limit) at the most.”

Brenda Gazzar is a multilingual multimedia reporter who has worked for a variety of news outlets in California and in the Middle East since 2000. She has covered a range of issues, including breaking news, immigration, law and order, race, religion and gender issues, politics, human interest stories and education. Besides the Los Angeles Daily News and its sister papers, her work has been published by Reuters, the Denver Post, Ms. Magazine, the Jerusalem Post, USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, The Cairo Times and others. Brenda speaks Spanish, Hebrew and intermediate Arabic and is the recipient of national, state and regional awards, including a National Headliners Award and one from the Associated Press News Executives' Council. She holds a dual master's degree in Communications/Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.